Sansar Pick of the Day: Hopswater Swallet

Hopswater Swallet was the talented content creator Nya Alchemi’s entry in the recently completed Sansar Labyrinth contest, and although it did not win a prize, it is still an outstanding achievement. You arrive at the mouth of a cave lit by glowing crystals:

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Attached to the cave entrance is a parchment which reads:

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Your goal is to make it all the way through to the end of the maze, avoiding traps along the way like rolling barrels. This particular maze was great fun to navigate!

Nya put a lot of hard work into designing this experience, and it really shows. Here’s a picture of the brewery, tucked away deep within the cave:

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Pay a visit to Hopswater Swallet and see if you can make it all the way to the very end!

Sansar Pick of the Day: The Combat Zone

One of the wonderful things about Sansar are the collaborations which have sprung up as people work together on projects. One example of this is The Combat Zone, where Gindipple the programmer and Nya Alchemi the mesh content creator have worked together to create a fun, fast, first-person-shooter capture the flag game with a Desert Storm feel. HoverDerby now has some serious competition in the esports department!

When you arrive at The Combat Zone lobby, you face three entrances. Enter the door with the blue light above it and you are on the Blue team, and entering the opposite door with the red light above it puts you on the Red team.

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You can pick up a gun at your compound, and use that, or you can get a paintball gun attachment for your arm ahead of time from the Sansar Store for free (male or female models, which Nya Alchemi made). Note that you can play in desktop mode just as easily as you can in a VR headset. Instructions are on the signs in the lobby.

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Scoring is pretty simple. Hitting a target dummy with a paintball gets you one point, hitting an opposing team member gets you 2 points. If you hit your own teammate by accident, you lose a point. If you capture the other team’s flag, you win 30 points. The first team to accumulate 100 points wins the game.

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Solas has made T-shirts for both male and female avatars, for both the Red and Blue teams, which are also available for free on the Sansar Store.

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But Alfy has really gone all out, creating helmets, fatigue pants and shirts, vests, ammunition belts, and combat boots to make a complete outfit, for both Red and Blue teams, and both men and women! In the picture below, I am wearing the men’s complete Blue team outfit and Nya’s paintball gun attachment. All these items are free from the Sansar Store, just search for “paintball” to find Nya’s, Solas’s and Alfy’s items for The Combat Zone.

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If you’d rather watch the game than play, from The Combat Zone entrance lobby, take the elevator in the middle (with the camel) and you are teleported to the spectators’ viewpoint, an invisible floor high above the playing field that gives you a complete birds-eye view of the entire playing field and the scoreboard.

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Gindipple tells me that he has spent about four months working on the coding for The Combat Zone. For example, he can issue God commands that completely rearrange the random placement of the buildings and palm trees on the playing field, to make it more crowded or more sparse as required.

One great part of the game is the target dummies! They are randomly-appearing flat-panel Ebbe Altberg figures (in his now-trademark dreadlocks and rainbow T-shirt) which pop up now and again for you to target with your paint balls!

Here’s Gindipple himself posing in front of a camel in game. The top bar above his head indicates his team (blue); the second green bar indicates his level of health (100%). If your health goes down to zero, you die, so try your best to evade the paintballs from the other side!

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Games are usually scheduled at 7:00 p.m. Sansar Time/Pacific Time, and Gindipple tells me that he usually gets between 8 and 12 people showing up to play.

The Combat Zone is yet another potent argument against the “Sansar is pretty but there’s nothing to do” naysayers. With the dedicated work of scripters like Gindipple and designers like Nya Alchemi, the opportunities in Sansar are indeed almost endless, and limited only by the imaginations of the creators!

Outfit Outlay: Ninjas in Sansar!

ninja (忍者) or shinobi (忍び) was a covert agent or mercenary in feudal Japan. The functions of the ninja included espionage, sabotage, infiltration, assassination and guerrilla warfare (Wikipedia). Three talented Sansar creators have made beautiful outfits for sale, for those days when you feel like channeling your inner ninja.

For women, there are two options for ninja wear. First up is the basic black Ninja Outfit – Female by Debi Baskerville, for S$99:

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You can pair it with the Katana for Sansar Female by Ralph Vintorix (S$50) and you’re good to go!

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Another option for women is the wonderfully detailed Onna-bugeisha / Ninja Top – Female and matching Onna-bugeisha / Ninja Pants -Female by Nya Alchemi (S$100 each). Add Nya’s Ninja Star Hat – Female to the outfit for S$75 and you’re all set!

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Here’s Vanity Fair in Nya Alchemi’s ninja outfit:

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For men, Ralph Vintorix has created a Classic Authentic Ninja Suit, which sells for S$450 and includes:

Igabakama (pants)
Kyahan (leg wrap)
Tekko (hand protection)
Uwagi (jacket)
Zukin (hood)
Tabi boots are available as a separate item (S$100) and is not included.
Katana and Pouch are free items.

Here’s my avatar in full ninja mode (click each image to see it larger):

So, whether you’re male or female, you are now ready to carry out espionage and other stealthy duties of the ninja!

(All pictures were taken in Genocyber Constantine’s Feudal Japan experience.)